While some opposition senators were irked by the proposed purges, government officials testified that many of the reporting requirements have been made redundant.

And at least one report, an annual overview of the government’s progress in purchasing more vehicles powered with alternative fuels, is being cut because year-after-year it repeats the same finding, said an official.

However, Bill C-38’s measures to do away with reports performed by the auditor general garnered most of the senators’ attention.

A dozen government bodies, including the Social Science and the Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Polar Commission and the Canadian Food inspection Agency, will no longer have to undertake an annual audit, said Gordon Boissonneault, senior advisor in the economic analysis and forecasting division of the Department of Finance.

The measure is meant to standardize the auditor general’s activities, which doesn’t require auditing many branches of the government on an annual basis.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Northern Pipeline Agency, the Canadian Transportation Accident Investigation and Safety Board, the Canada Revenue Agency, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research will no longer file annual audits, says the budget. The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy is also on the list but is being eliminated completely by the budget.

While some of these bodies are shrinking in size due to the budget, like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, others are getting a big financial boost, like the Northern Pipeline Agency, which is getting an additional $47 million, and the Canadian Revenue Agency, which is receiving an additional $8 million to clamp down on charities.

There are also plans in the budget to eliminate the performance audits of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Parks Canada Agency, said Boissonneault. These audits examine the process used to assess the agencies’ performance.

The auditor general’s office wasn’t required to make cuts to its operations by the government as federal departments have, said Boissonneault. But it was asked to find savings in the same spirit as the wider government cuts and decided on these particular audits, he told senators.

The agencies will still receive scrutiny through the government’s overall annual audit and periodic performance reports will also continue, he said.

Still, opposition senators warned these cuts could endanger Canadians, especially those to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

“It should very much concern parliamentarians,” said New Brunswick Senator Pierrette Ringuette.

Cutting the reports will save the office $1.4 million annually, said Boissonneault.

Falling short on green car standard

A little-known report on the government’s ability to buy green vehicles will also be scrapped by the budget, senators learned.

The Alternative Fuels Act, passed in 1995, requires 75 per cent of the government’s vehicle purchases to run on alternative fuels, which in practice mostly means ethanol-fueled cars but could include natural gas-powered and electric vehicles.

In 2010-11, 54 per cent of the 3,530 vehicles the government purchases run on alternatives, says the most recent report on the act.

But, as one government official explained at committee, the practice puts a strain on government finances because gasoline is still cheaper than ethanol, a fuel made with biological products like corn.

Every year, the report, which the Treasury Board prepares, concludes that the price strain remains an obstacle on the government’s ability to reach the 75 per cent mark. The report is “stale” and “obsolete” and so the board wants to scrap the it entirely, said the official.

The Treasury Board also wants to get rid of its human resources report that has been made redundant by other internal systems introduced since the report was brought in, like the Public Service Management Dashboard.

The Senate is doing a pre-study of the budget bill through six different committees, with the national finance committee focusing on the strictly on the taxation and internal financing measures in the bill.

Earlier in the day, the environment, energy and natural resources committee began examining the contentious environmental aspects of the budget.

Debate of the C-38 will continue on Tuesday with both the national finance and the transport and communications committees looking at the bill.

The House of Commons debated the budget for the sixth day throughout the morning and afternoon, Thursday. A second reading vote is due Monday.